The part of the Abraham-Sarah family I read for today's blog site is part of the story of their great-grandson named Joseph. The setting of the verses I have chosen today occur after Joseph had been sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, and he ends up in Egypt at first as a slave. Now Pharaoh had a difficult dream to understand and, you might know, the imprisoned Joseph gave the correct interpretation -- there would be seven years of unbelievable crop production followed by a seven years of severe famine. And so Pharaoh made Joseph his second in command of the national food production and storage so that Egypt would be well prepared for the coming famine.
The famine arrived and Joseph's brothers went down to Egypt because they heard of the stored food. But they didn't know, or even recognize, their brother, but he recognized them! He could have had with Pharaoh's support all the vengeance imaginable on his brothers. But instead he said to them when he no longer wanted to 'conceal' his identity: ‘Come closer to me.’
And they came closer.
He said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.
And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves,
because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.
(Genesis 45:4-5)
Wow! Admitting that there are times when God uses an individual's tragedy caused by other humans for the benefit of a nation and a world!
I have seen such true in my own life. And my prayers are that if there has been tragedy in your life that somehow or another it will be of benefit to those with suffering similar to your own suffering. I have found that such is true if I don't ask the question, "Why?" but do ask the question:
"Now that this has happened, what does God want me to become and do?"
No comments:
Post a Comment